The good news: Howards’ is accepting phone-in bids until close of business at 6:00PM on Wednesday. (They aren’t staffed to answer multiple calls after business hours)
You can call them to check on its status, and place your bid: 1-301-733-2722
Any phone-in bidder who wins must also pay for shipping the framed piece… I can’t quote you any shipping charges here, as it will vary depending on destination and carrier.

Monday afternoon, the highest bid on my painting was $26.00… and a Howards’ Arts employee expected some of the popular paintings (including mine) to see bidding increases in the next couple of days. All of the proceeds from art sales will be donated to their 2011 charity: Guiding Eyes for the Blind.

AfriCat was the first painting for which I videotaped my progress, rather than taking photos. I planned to upload the footage last weekend with my blog post, but my SD card mysteriously disappeared. I feared it had evolved itself into another dead battery or remote for a non-existent device…. which is our techie alternative to the “socks and coat-hangers” theory. Although transforming into a defunct item would be a regression in evolution, rather than progressive… but I digress.

This past weekend, the missing link (i.e. the SD card) turned up. And I managed to salvage my 3 hours worth of video.
The painting itself took about 10 hours in total, but I didn’t have enough space on the card to capture every single minute of the painting process.

I captured the basics, however, and edited the footage even further to total approximately 20 minutes (split between two videos) using high-speed effects in Windows Live Movie Maker.

Here is part 1:

And Part 2:

In my first video, Dominic and my 2-year-old son made guest appearances! :)
I decided not to edit them out of the video, because this is my reality. Even though Joe was home all afternoon, babysitting the kids, they still made a point to visit me for cuddle time (and a bit of whining, too).

My typical day in the studio – never completely alone, with hours of uninterrupted time to work. I won’t pretend that my afternoons are breezy, stress-free, and full of creative energy. Rather, it’s a constant struggle to get things done and not be distracted by the goings-on around me.

Although sometimes I envy my single childless friends for all their personal “me” time, I also realize that they envy me for this state of chaos I live with.
I’m fortunate to have my crazy family.

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About TaraFly

A Crazy Cat Lady who divides her time between painting portraits of cats dressed in period costumes, watching BBC mini-series, growing weeds and wildflowers, and baking pumpkin pies seasoned with cat hair.